


"Watch her memories with Julian (250g)"

by moonsofceres



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Female Apprentice (The Arcana), Medical Themes, No name used for Apprentice, Other, Plague, Plague Doctor - Freeform, Sexual Tension, She/her pronouns, Suggestive Themes, Supportive Apprentice, Unresolved Tension, Your Apprentice, at the VERY least questionable ethics in the time of the plague, love in the time of the plague, or at least tension in the time of the plague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 15:07:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20876204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonsofceres/pseuds/moonsofceres
Summary: Asra the Magician searches the pieces, wanting to find where things went wrong. In the time of the plague of Vesuvia, a Doctor and his Apprentice face limited choices.





	"Watch her memories with Julian (250g)"

  
As the memory came into focus, he noticed her hands immediately. So certain in their movements. Moving too fast, as they usually did. Fast enough that he failed to comprehend what it was she, they, were doing with them underneath.  
  
She turned at the sound of feet padding against declining stairs, landing heavily before a heavy body, moving faster than it wanted to be. Through her eyes, Asra watched as mess of shirt and limbs appeared in the working space, following at last by a head of dishevelled red hair.  
  
"Still at it, are we?" a familiar, charming voice inquired. Asra was prepared for his heart to twist, the disconcerting way it had begun to recently... and yet, hers did not.  
  
"You're worse than I am, you know" the doctor remarked, regarding her and her movements in his passing, before resigning the last (or less likely, the first) of his energy to fixing coffee.  
  
The tiniest smirk met no resistance from the corners of her lips. She continued weaving, the makings of a thin braid beginning to spiral around the bottle with practiced movements.  
  
Her brief glance towards Julian had revealed a small area, a medical clinic of some kind. Probably his, Asra distantly realised, as if he had heard it mentioned some time when he was not paying attention. Surrounding her were slender bottles and vials, a familiar sight from his time at her magic shop. The books were familiar enough also, an item they had shared. But the parchments were unlike her, the scrolls not likely to be something from her posessions.  
  
She did not respond in words, her head gently inclining until he had passed, and then returning to her task. Reaching up, a slender hand clasped a shining blue rod from the braided folds of her hair, using the curved end to place a stopper and fasten it on the end of the curved vial. Tanned fingers deftly weaving the braid over the top, tying the potion together... twitching, barely visibily, as if aching to perform another step in a famililar ritual, but instead coming to rest back on the desk instead.  
  
The aroma of darkly roasted, freshly brewed coffee wafted through the small room, an audible yawn groaning from behind her. Stretching parts and bones joining in harmony, only to return to silence as the beverage was consumed.  
  
"Don't let me interrupt you" he continued, either unphased by her lack of responses, or anxiously provoked by them.  
  
"What is it that you're working on, anyway? Quite industrious for an apprentice, I'll say. Not that I can protest, really. I did the same thing too."  
  
The question was accompanied by the sweeping movement of a slender hand, pale fingers brushing aside a a sheet of auburn as he craned his body, as if to look at what she was working on, but without actually invading her space - merely curious, from a distance. He had barely had the chance to do so before the lock of hair returned across forehead and temples, and he raised the steaming mug to further bury his face.  
  
When she spoke, her voice was both muffled by the plague doctor's mask she wore, and amplified by his tourists positions around her ears, within the beak's confines with her.  
  
"A cure, of course" she responded, a cheeky set of words. A tiny chuckle was never heard by the doctor, yet tore an ache through the magician, watching uninvited from the future.  
  
He moved closer, shifting his lanky form to the chair beside the desk she had set up shop on. Inspecting the bottle she steadily worked at sealing, containing a liquid that seemed to simmer and burn inside, undulating for a moment as the ingredients melded together, folding in on each other before finally settling. A shimmering, brightly glowing liquid that faded beneath her leather covered fingers.  
  
"Well, you have my interest."  
  
She visibly turned her head to face him, tilting the beaked mask to the side. Eyes remaining stable enough to consider him from behind the amused gesture.  
  
A gloved hand reached out from the bottle lid, instead moving to pinch finger and thumb around a sheet of parchment, unrolled as the ink finished the final stages of drying in her scratchy, looping writing.  
  
He set his mug down, reaching for the sheet handed to his own covered fingers. Remaining unslouched in the chair as he consumed its message.  
  
"An analysis of those results I had you record. How... helpful, actually. How did you know I had not gotten to this already?"  
  
He couldn't see the roll of her eyes from behind the wine red coloured lenses of the plague doctor's mask, but he felt the quick shove her arms reached out with. He chuckled, low and relaxed.  
  
Asra's heart skipped a beat. He had never heard such a laugh from Ilya before.  
  
Before the bright sound had fully faded from the small, shared space, the doctor slumped back in his chair. A small enough gesture that the alchemist did not realise, so slow and sullen were his movements. She did not appear to notice the shift in atmosphere until he spoke again.  
  
"I _am_ sorry to have left you alone, for so long" he opened, his happy tone slipping to ominous melancholy.  
  
"But while I don't envy the challenge of an apprentice left to fend for themselves, I _did_ hear remarkable things about you on my way back".  
  
Julian set the mug down, apparently unware as to the extent his observation of her was obvious.  
  
"...Perhaps your bedside manner left a few things to be desired. But the way I see it, you are a genuine, empathetic soul. Combined with how you have taken up these skills, and the ones you already posessed... well, you have provided quite some relief to these suffering folk"  
  
He looked back up, from beneath an auburn veil, curled in seemingly planned spirals that accentuated the curve of his brow and nose. He smiled, the lingering hunch of his shirt causing it to pillow outwards somewhat, barely held together as it sagged in front of his bare chest.  
  
"Not to mention... to _me_".  
  
Amusement danced along his words. Protecting some shared, silent understanding, that Asra felt distinctly uninvited to.  
  
A tension that he had not seen build.  
  
This caught her attention, the ilongated front of the mask dipping upwards, turning to face him. A dark hand moved, a fast and practiced movement that followed the curves of her body, following contours in an almost sleight of hand fashion.  
  
Before her fingers could find their destination, wherever that was intended to be, he pushed backwards from the chair and rose in a sharp, sudden movement.  
  
"Yes, it seems you are quite an adept apprentice. Which is... fortuitous."  
  
Her fingers curled back in on themselves, burying silently amongst the bright piled of fabric that made up her clothes.  
  
"I received this letter. From, ahh..."  
  
She waited, silent and unmoving. The slightest inclination to the left by her masked face. As if she were used to his dramatic silences.  
  
"...The Palace."  
  
He produced a sheet of parchment of his own, this one gilded and folded, encrusted with a red seal which had already had it's wax pried away from its contents, paper, message. A movement both sheepish and enboldened, in a way so distinctly _Ilya_.  
  
The parchment remained clutched in his hands, as if she may tear it from them, toss it away.  
  
"I think... no, I _know_ I have an opportunity here. To help people. To help the Count, and finally bring Vesuvia out of this nightmare. I must go."  
  
After a moment of silence, a slender black covered, voidlike purple arm unfurled, fingers uncurling from an open palm in invitation. Dr. Devorak watched her movements for a few beats before placing the parchment on top of it, only inspecting the union for a second before turning to pace.  
  
She inspected it in silence, moving her head as required to allow the eye holes to observe the fancy, flowing ink. It was a royal summons. The same as the one Asra had received, way out in the middle of the desert.  
  
When she looked back up, the plague doctor stood before her. His face turned downwards, visibly unsure. A flush creeping rapidly across high cheekbones.  
  
"Musn't I? Now that it's time, I'm not so sure I can. Do I have what it takes? What if I--"  
  
The doctor noticed it before the magician, though neither in time. A small length of tanned skin, her calf emerging from a pile of skirts. He hadn't noticed in as many words until now, but the apprentice was covered entirely, form the plague mask on her head to her gloved fingers. Even the mess of hair that usually surrounded her was out of sight, save for a sparse strand of curls in her peripheral vision. The layers of patterned fabrics had looked perfectly at home in their magic shop, almost blending in to their surroundings sometimes to the point that she just looked like a disembodied head, a stranded magical entity spread across an earthly beach as a mermaid, scowling, or laughing.  
  
As she turned around, the brightly coloured array caught Jullian's eyes first. They widened extensively before first her calf came into view, and then the bare, curved arch of her foot. He looked positively shocked.  
  
With a pang of want, he realised that Ilya _felt_ it.  
  
The opalite, silken join of his billowed shirt met the first resistance of a slender foot, arched to press with pointed toes just beneath his naval. A sudden, singular exposure of skin from beneath the folds of her endless piles of dress, holding him in place with no resistance.  
  
Through the memory, Asra's attention was drawn to the way Ilya's fingers twitched, as if restrained from reaching out. His apprentice was not moved to see them - and yet it was as if she knew anyway, smiling into the underside of the mask.  
  
He gasped, eyes flying up to meet hers as the soft sound escaped his lips. Mouth agape, suspended from wherever his distraught sentance had left off.  
  
"What if you _can't_?"  
  
She phrased it more as a challenge. A quietly spoken, exotic sounding suggestion that carried no opinoin with it. Her toes flexed inwards, curling one after the other into the soft, warm mound beneath his shirt. It so barely resembled such a garment at times, barely tucked in or fastened, and late at night seemed to be the most common factor for it's deconstruction. The apprentice deftly capitlised on the opportunity, dark lashes fluttering open and upwards to consider him, his tall figure much higher above her own. Leaning back in the wooden chair as she watched, waiting for a response to her nonchalant interruption.  
  
Julian's discomfort increased considerably, visibly. Asra had no way of avoiding this realisation. It dawned on him that she was _watching_ it.  
  
"I-- yes. I suppose. There's all sorts of a things a person can't do, until they're right on the brink of facing off with it."  
  
He sounded increasingly distracted as the words progressed. The movements of the beak did not fully portray how extensive her gaze grew to be.  
  
"Can't? Or won't?"  
  
"What does it matter? You really should know, this is no way for an apprentice to..."  
  
She did not allow him to finish. The curved arch of her foot slid beneath the open shirt, her toes curling into the soft underside of his pale belly.  
  
"That sounds like no way to live at all."  
  
His belly fluttered beneath the ball of her foot. As if his whole body wanted to quake, and yet he held it at bay. The tension and feeling being expressed through his resistance.  
  
The shock in Julian's face was still apparent, and yet it had lessened. Melting beneath her touch. Or her assertion, as Asra presumed was more likely.  
  
The lids of his eyes fluttering lower, the landscape of sharp cheekbones spreading with darkened red hues. His hands reached back for the security of the wall, and yet she held him in place in a position _just_ out of its reach.  
  
It was obvious to Asra that he was struggling with what to do with his hands. The apprentice did not notice.  
  
"But... I would be abandoning you as a teacher, at a critical part of your learning. I was fortuitous to learn from one brightest minds there is, and your potential is limited to the likes of _me_."  
  
She considered the sentiment in silence, the beaked mask tilting first to the left, pausing, and then back to the right.  
  
The arch of her foot did not ease up, still pressed into the underside of his bare stomach. As he eased into the sudden contact, she deftly siezed the opportunity to press her toes into him again, quickly moving her foot to a slightly different expanse of flesh previously untouched by her, drawing another surprised gasp from the doctor.  
  
"Perhaps" she said, almost dismissively, continuing before he could interrupt. "Do you want this?"  
  
A soft gasp turned into a rasped laugh, small but meaningful, forced from his lungs without his consent. Arching a well manicured brow, almost suggestively. Teeth scraping ever so slightly over his bottom lip, held seductively between them before granting their release.  
  
"You might need to clarify."  
  
Her own stomach twisted, and yet her covered composure remained.  
  
"The Palace."  
  
"_Yes_."  
  
His breathing was a touch more laboured, too breathy for that to wholly be the case.  
  
"Then you will get it."  
  
It sounded so _easy_ when she said it. As if there were no other option, no alternate reality. Although knowing what he knew, from Asra's own reality, her assumptions on this matter had been correct.  
  
"Do you trust me?"  
  
He paused for a moment. Seemingly lost in the unexpected turn the exchange had taken, but surrendering to her lead nonetheless.  
  
"I think that I could."  
  
"That will do."  
  
"But what happens if I... _fail_?"  
  
She shrugged noncholantly. "Then we die. So, it does not matter."  
  
Without warning, she slid her foot nimbly back off his body, tucking back to the floor and dissapearing back within colourful clothing. He laughed, a startled sound that that was in no small way in reaction to the sudden loss of contact.  
  
"That's hardly reassuring!"  
  
The apprentice was not perturbed. "But what matters is that you want to try. Do you not?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She stood up from the chair, moving to walk in a slow circle around him. Allowing the mask to accentuate where she watched, not hiding the fact that she considered him in his entirely. His ears turned a furious red. His hands settled into fidgeting fists, even more so holding themselves back than before.  
  
"Many people are dying, Doctor. You know that more intimately than I do. More people are dying than there are people willing to try. You genuinly want to help them. Plus, you have a brilliant mind. Do you not?"  
  
She moved past his face again, beginning another loop. Perhaps to allow him the chance to agree with her, without looking at her directly. And yet he did not anyway, remaining silent, the question unanswered.  
  
Slowing to a stop behind her, she slowly inclined the mask in consideration. Without warning, pushing him towards the wall with a single, forceful shove, beside the desk she had been working at. He gasped, yet held his hands up in time to press them besides his face, which turned over his shoulder with a positively flushed, suddenly _parched_ expression.  
  
With a gently but firm hand to the back of his neck he got the hint, facing back around to the wall, his breathing increasing. She ran her fingers downward, across the silken expanse of shirt that covered his scapula, down the ridges of his spine. Moving around the bony juts of his hips, dragging leather covered fingers upwards, bringing the shirt part of the way with them on their journey.  
  
His body trembled beneath hers, the slightest touch enough to elicit delicious reactions. The plague had wrecked the city for so long. Neither had realised how touch starved the other was. Nor perhaps, the starvation within themselves.  
  
Her hand withdrew with intricate parchment held between it, unfurling the document with one hand. With her arm still tucked, hooked under his, she held it up before both of them, the beak of her mask poking over his shoulder as she examined the words they could both see.  
  
"It seems here that you do. These people seem to think so, anyway."  
  
She moved the letter away from them again, carefully setting it down flat on the work desk. Inclining her head again to watch him, from the side.  
  
"I think so, too."  
  
"My, I've never seen this side of you before. Have you always been this way?"  
  
She inclined her head to regard him, beak of her mask over his shoulder, the movement crossing his collarbones, moving up along his neck. Her gloved hand moved up the other side, coming to slide each finger in turn over the sharp curve there. The faintest grip above his collarbones as the mask moved back out of sight, around to the back of neck.  
  
"Perhaps you weren't looking?"  
  
He chuckled then, an inviting mix of wanton and sultry. "How did you get so bold, anyway? Maybe you should be going to the palace in my place. You're hardly phased at all."  
  
She shrugged, and he felt it. "I grew up on the road. It wasn't until I came to the city that I realised people thought there was an alternative."  
  
"Well, you're very inspiring."  
  
"Good. Because I am not giving you a choice."  
  
Asra's vision blurred, his tenuous link to the fast threatening to falter. In his desperate search for answers, he hadn't even considered the possibility of what he might find.  
  
Of the weight that would place on his heart.  
  
He refocused on the accessed memory in time to see Ilya insist on leaving during the night - a painful, almost comical coincidence. She gave him two potions and candies, and there was no further personal exchange between them.  
  
He had almost withdrawn from the past when he saw it.  
  
The reflection of the windowed door as it closed behind the Doctor, setting forth on his journey, one that may change his life.  
  
She took off the mask.  
  
Her eyes were _red_.  
  
With a pained gasp, Asra was forced from the memory. Whether it was his body telling him he had enough, or his magic faltering, he did not know.  
  
Faust was quick to curl around his arm, moving upwards and across his chest, tilting her adorable face up to look at him with concern in her eyes.  
  
"_Friend??"_ she asked.  
  
Asra knew what she meant. But his heart could not move on.  
  
"I'm not so sure."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Any feedback is welcome.


End file.
